#kardiatype

[alterhuman-positivity]

People with alterhuman identities that aren't strictly nonhuman have just as much place in the community as anyone else. If you're entirely human, or human as well as nonhuman, or even aspecies or something more nuanced--you're important, you're valued, and you're still alterhuman.

Share your experiences more often, if you'd like. The tags might be mainly filled with posts about nonhumanity, but that doesn't mean that your identity should be kept quiet! Be proud of who you are, humanity and all included.

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Media Representation and (a rant on) Draconity

I think it's natural to want to find something within the media that represent and reflects yourself. As a dragon, the option might seem like quite a few within various sources of media, but the realities are that I and my various alterhuman identities are not the typical or commonly seen dragons.

As myself, I'm orange, furred, white feathered wings, yellow horns, and the vibrant red belly. Those are not things you find common in animals, even amongst birds, that's some colors that don't exactly flow together. People drawn inspiration from around their world to create, people are also creature of comfort and habit--with the idea of dragon being "fire breathing, bat winged, scaly lizard" or "scale with mane, elemental control and sometimes deity, serpentine wyrm", and then variations based off of that, perhaps scaled beast with feathery wings, or great furred wyrm with webbed wings and fire breathing. Seriously what is with the fire breathing? Have I mention that I'm a shapeshifting sort of dragon? While that is often tied to the eastern sort of draconic beings, my exact combination of dragons are far and few in between. Even the dutch angel dragon within the furry community has certain limitation and character traits that don't align with me. If I hadn't got turned off by the idea of looking anywhere or being misidentify as a horse, I might have find myself drawn to the dutch angel dragon as a sort of maybe paratype, or just friendly dragons that I share similar traits with. But alas.

Every single piece of media or fictional source that has a representation I can find brings me joy. Games centered on collecting dragons like Flight Rising or Dragon Cave does a great job of acknowledging that diversity. I get especially grumpy when dragon maker only has webbed wings and scaly body. At one point I really did not want to put the 3D dragon maker by Dragonita on my Alterhuman Shifts and Self Discovery Tools guide (ohh, guess I finally got a name). You can call me petty however you want, but I was not very happy of something that denies my existence. I'm a strong advocate for draconic diversity, because I am not alone in being "unusual" sort of dragons. Nobody should feel like this, unseen. Dealing with the constant "he or she" as someone nonbinary is more than enough, thank you very much. I feel like as alterhuman, hell, even just within the confine of draconic community or even smaller the dragonkind community, there should be a sort of basic understanding that "dragon" is a abstract term. Like "what is human", "what is dragon" should be a default and nobody gets to decide who is or isn't dragon. To touch back onto what I wrote on Day 1 of this challenge, alterhumanity is a experience, it is a feeling, it is vague and abstract, it is something you know within your essence, or one day you will awaken to it. A dragon is all of that. I did end up finally putting the 3d builder on my guide. I will still prefer Lukas Sotrmskull's Dragon builder though.

Before I let my thought get away from me, lets talk about my other alterhuman identities.

The other side of the spectrum, when you have a almost exact match in sources that are well known, you end up keep getting mistaken as it. My kardiatype looks very alike to Haku from Spirited Away. It gets frustrating when I bring up my kardiatype, and people immediately go "oh, Haku!" It's the same problem with people seeing my self protrait and call that a horse or a goat. Seriously, is like people don't recognize a basic dragon head shape if it isn't scaled and spiked. Horses are neat, goat is fine, and Haku is a very cool dragon. But my kardiatype was not Haku. I'd argue that he was just your generic Japanese storm dragon that may or may not be local deity. Wild thought huh. I like that I get to see glimpse of that dragon through Haku, but I would really rather not deal with yet another case of misidentification in the form of "close enough". My human english name got enough of that treatment.

Amongst my other draconic identities, I have a vague-flicker of Flammie from the mana series. The vaguetype feeling has components of paratype within, precisely due to myself being the sort of dragon I am. Belly plate aside, Flammie looks very close to me. And with my discovery of how suggestive my wing count may be (currently in shifts of at least 4), Flammie is definitely a big contender for media representation of myself.

When it comes to intensionally created identity, me and Akumu, my headmate/mirror self, collectively linked a vaguetype of Aurelion Sol. Now, Aurelion Sol has nothing alike to me, maybe the color is more align with Akumu's, but generally, the eastern noodle form is my least favorite to partake in. It feels like a responsibility, and things are just heavier in a way when I'm in that form. It doesn't have to make much sense. Perhaps I will delve into this one day. One can argue we formed the link due to our kardiatype. But really, it happened because that's the one dragon we were really drawn to (and attempted to main) while playing League, and well, there were two others who were shyvana and smolder respectively, and we wanted to complete the draconic of LoL set for shits and giggles. There not much need to find a representation, because we are the exact representation from the source. But wait, we identify with the concept stage where people dub "unbound form" of Sol. Whelp, guess we gotta look elsewhere again.

It feels like I'm trying to start a topic and well, rant on draconity got me all over the place.

Sometimes it really is a exercise in patience. The more unique you are, the harder it is to find representation. Wouldn't change myself for the world though, I love my uniqueness, and I appreciate how crazily varied dragons can be. Or any other sort of creatures or identities or experiences. Life is wonderful like that.

[nebulabasket]

I mapped out my alterhuman identities.

(The sliders are in arbitrary positions as it's meant to show how my kintypes fluctuate; which I imagine kind of like a soundboard. The grey box next to "doll trapped" is a checkbox.)

I learned a lot of new terms and concepts at Othercon and have done a lot of reflecting and introspecting. I've finally officially decided to be a catlinker and I've reconsider my stance that the term "therian" doesn't apply to me. I've decided that it does.I've also come to the realization that it feels kind of like my light kintype has its own kintypes due to a panelist mentioning a nesting doll kintype situation. I don't believe my alterhumanity has anything to do with past lives personally (the octoling kardiatype is due to basically what I would describe as a parallel life that's been manifested into CyanTide (previself party member)), but I'm sure there could be other causes. Maybe more parallel lives. I'm pretty sure that's the case with my aliedragon (MoonLighter) kintype, as manifested in Glow Bright (previme party member).

Also, I don't have a good term for when I'm trapped in a doll. It's not a kintype or a paratype or a hearttype or a hearthome or anything. My anymic glitchy kintype is kind of like a spirit and a specter, but it's not a ghost. Even still, it's like sometimes it's bound to this old doll and gets trapped inside against its will. Not always, though. Sometimes I fel like this feeling bleeds through to my altereldritch form.

Shout out to u/GhostOrchidGynoid on Reddit for coining the term alterfae (https://www.reddit.com/r/alterhuman/s/uRxk7tnKpE) and the alie- prefix; I am expanding their definitions past just fae for my altereldritch, alterkitsune, and aliedragon kintypes.

Feel free to ask me about any unfamiliar terms.

~ 🍭 Cyannide Lolypop 🍭

[sparkylurkdragon]

I was having a chat with @that-dreaming-dragon about otherheartedness, which I'm still trying to wrap my head around, and we had this exchange that they thought summarized things well.

Ryuu: One metaphor I use for heartedness is that, my kinity is my heart (the irony XD), my kardiatype is my bone, and my hearttype is my value, my memories, my preference. Things that are not me, but also part of who I am.

Sparky: Ah...! So, if I'm understanding correctly: your kinity is who you are, your kardiatype is what builds you, and your heartedness is who you aspire to be, kind of?

Ryuu: yep! Heartedness is a bit of fuzzy area, something important, so connected to you, yet not who you are

Ryuu: That summarize the three pretty succintly in a simple way

[indornaga]

Kardiatype: A past life which experiences had such an impact on you that it formed your core identiy and personality even to this day in such a way that it differs from your past life identity/personality therefor making you NOT identifying as the being from your past life anymore.

My core identity is spiritual in nature. What I identify as today is based on past life experiences, but I still identify as those creatures today; they frame how I see myself and my actions. A kardiatype, even though it is also a spiritual identity, feels different.

My kardiatypes feel different from my kintypes in that the former is complete. I left that behind, it's done, finished, over, and in my cases, I succeeded at whatever I was doing. Nothing carried over into me today except the memories and emotions that I had experienced then. While, yes, that's very important to me still, it's no longer me. As a goddess, I carried everything that made me, me, on into me today. As an Indoraptor, it somehow still carried on into me today. It feels unfinished, with no closure.

One of my kardiatypes is a Survivor from ARK: Survival Evolved, a survival crafting game. It's easy enough for one to say "you're hyperfixating on a video game, you're just identifying that way because of your obsession." Recently, my computer capable of playing the game crashed. I hadn't been able to play the game for about a month, and the break from it had been good on analyzing my kardiatype, as I was forced to disengage with the media.

Before my computer crashed, I had begun analyzing whether it was a kintype due to several similarities, habits, and instincts that I had noticed and begun to attribute to my kardiatype. But the several degrees of separation from the game allowed me to really sit and consider and accept the lack of feeling like being an Awakened Managarmr. I came to understand that the continued biases and opinions from that life bleeding over into this one, doesn't have to mean that I still identify as the kinsidered thing. But it also made me realize that I still had those thoughts, biases, opinions, and instincts, and they formed a part of my identity even into today.

This understanding helped me also finally and firmly label my faehunter 'type as a kardiatype. For a long time, I'd been trying to analyze that as well, but the overwhelming biased instincts from that 'type had made it really difficult to relegate to "just an important past life", regardless of how little I actually identified as a fae hunting creature in this life. Figuring out my Survivor kardiatype makes that so much easier to accept.

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[angelic-polar-fox]

I had contemplated a hearttype being potentially a kardiatype, and today I'm thinking about it again, it might be more likely to remain a hearttype that's a past life (if it were) than to be called a kardiatype. I have a kardiatype, and the feelings I have about it is different than my hearttype, which, while being potentially a past life, is not the **structure** of who I am as a whole. What do you think? As the one who coined Kardiatype/Empeiríatype

Well, firstly I think whatever feels more correct to you should be the term you use.

Secondly, yes. This difference you describe is kind of the reason I couned the term in the first place. So it would probably make more sense to not call this other hearttype also a kardiatype.

[aestherians]

Hey~ Is it okay to ask about your kardiatype? As the coiner I'm still struggeling how to write down a solid definition, especially when it comes to psychological kardiatypes

My kardiatype is Emily Jones from the now-discontinued Elvendale franchise.

I'm not sure how to describe my relationship with her. I was stuck in a questioning loop for years because I genuinely felt like I was her. Past tense. At no point have I felt like I'm currently her, but the deja vu-like feelings I get when I watch the webisodes is impossible to ignore. I don't necessarily miss Elvendale or Emily's friends there, but it feels like I should miss them, like I have known them once. I also have a couple of specific noemata/interpretations that don't necessarily lign up with canon (I couldn't finish watching the Netflix series because it was too different. I'm a webisodes kind of creature).

I don't know how else to describe it. It feels like a past life. Except, I don't believe in fictional reincarnation, so I've concluded that my brain made up a past life experience. It's not much different from having psychological parallel lives, though I guess there isn't a lot of writing on that either.

Same base experience as spiritual folks, just... non-spiritual

[starsailor-kinthepast]

For those unaware, I've recognized a version of Peter Pan as a kardiatype. Delighted to tell you all this, because it fills my heart with joy to accept it <3 It's all rather wonderful. Feel free to ask me questions about this if you want ^^

[that-dreaming-dragon]

"Alterhuman"

Maybe we should talk about how alterhuman doesn't just mean nonhuman identify-as stuff.

Because it's meant to cover more than that. It's for otherkind, therian, fictionfolk. It's for 'linkers, hearted people, those with flicker and cameos. It includes kardiatype, paratype, vaguetype experiences. It's both nonhuman and human-to-the-left, or even broader like archetrope. And so many more.

Some have been using it as something exclusive for too much when it has always meant to be something inclusive.

[digidrakncreature]

Some Digimorph Thoughts

Before reading this imagine that every sentence begins with "I think maybe"

Don't know if I was specifically a mutant but I think my entire colony was mutated some generation before me. Like our hive was just on top of some magic stone or something.

Lived underground like ants/termites tunnels and chambers

ate mushrooms and ... moles? rats? some sort of digging rodents. and also these natural crystals that were definitely some sort of collectable.

We went on gathering/hunting trips. I liked apples. I liked outside. I liked the sky.

We were either a low level kind of fodder enemy or an upgraded version of that mob. Shapeshifters. We could have been mimics, maybe. I don't know. I know only that I'm a terrible mimic, myself, and probably hadn't been good at it then either.

I left my colony for the sky, for exploration, for adventure and apples.

We didn't raise our young. I think maybe all our eggs were placed in the same chamber – nobody knew if any gobbler was their spawn or not. (Gobbler = accidental term I'd made once that fits, they eat a lot to pupate.)

It was considered important to try to procreate at least a little to continue the colony. So I made 1 egg – by myself – our spawn are basically randomized traits that can be created by 1 to 3 of us, depending on how big a pool of traits you wanted that drawing to have. I left the egg and I left the colony.

Was that the catalyst for my code being corrupted? Or did I already have a glitch that caused me to go against what I was programmed to be? It doesn't really matter, end result is the same, and it's not like any of us had any actual choices. The programmers would just make a copy and go down every path anyway.

There was a tiger. It wasn't the same shape as tigers are here. Longer legs, shorter body, I think she might have been a humanoid tigerfolk. I think she might have been the adventurer I chose to travel with.

Just having feelings about:

- being a low level enemy in a videogame — imagine we were just living our lives sitting on some plot relevant item and an adventurer or team of adventurers could have just wiped us out just to get to the stupid thing that we didn't even know was there and didn't need or want

- living underground. digging

- living in a sort of hive society???

[alterhuman-art]

[Image description: Digital half-body drawing of a white-furred eastern dragon rearing up with their scaled forearms in the air. A mane of blue fur runs down their back and coral-like horns branch out from on top their head. The background is the night sky. End description.]

Morikai-sama for @sognodrago on ArtFight! We enjoyed doing the background and shading on this one a lot, we're happy with what we achieved.

[THIS IS A GIFT, DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU ARE THE INTENDED RECIPIENT]

Please do not use our art without our permission. Feel free to ask to use for icons and similar things, but we have the right to say no.

Program: Firealpaca Approx. Time: 1h 30m Original Date: 01.08.24 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of: Art Fight 2024 Attack! (System Member Artist: Cinnabar)

[aestherians]

I doubt I’ll write anything much about this but the idea of having a psychological kardiatype is one I can relate to

Specifically with “…(these) are integral to my identiy in a way that I know “I wouldn’t be the way I am without them” but they are still not exactly kintypes or fictotypes because, despite these feelings and experiences I don’t necessarily identify as them anymore.”

They’re not past lives for me, they’re more of “a past version of me is separate from my current Self.”

Just personally I’m not really interested in specifically being called that (or having my experiences being called that) but I wanted to send this anyways

Interesting! Thanks for sending this :)

[starsailor-kinthepast]

Hiii! We're admittedly still trying to understand the concept of kardiatypes, what made you realise your most recent identity? :D - Alex

My journey with Peter Pan started when I saw the 2003 movie, a day went by, and I said, out loud, "oh fuck."

Kinfeels :tm:

The ones you just... can't explain. The ones that dig deep and make you FEEL things of unreasonable amounts. The ones that make things seem familiar, and right.

Now, I could technically call Pan a kintype for the time being, but I'm fairly sure it would become a kardiatype later on. See, the difference is that a kintype is something you currently identify as, a kardiatype is something you used to identify as (more commonly, a past life you no longer identify as).

I have a good amount of past lives I don't identify as anymore (in the way that I was them, but then I experienced other things and changed into a different version; the way I don't identify as the child I once was, within this life), so it was very much like holding up swatches of colors and seeing what fit, what matched, what was similar, what was different. A lot of experiences just aligned and made sense!

Though, it took me a few weeks to get there. There was denial and uncertainty for a while there.

Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate further on my kardiatypes and how I experience them, rather than in the lense of this particular 'type!! I appreciate the ask <3

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Noemata and Exomemories

I don’t really get much exomemories. Not from other lives at least. Depends on when and how you or I count lucid dream world, it’d be a toss up for me to call all of them exomemories, but I also wouldn’t say some of them aren’t. It gets fuzzy at time whether it truly is just made up chaos from mind, or if it has been a view into a different world. Sometimes they felt like that.

The dream I talked about last day has a bit of element of exomemories in there. How much? I do not know.

Other moments where I have exomemories are from vision. This was me doing a group guided mediation, and I sort of fell asleep, but then.

Thunder booming, flashing, the storm raging. The sky is dark, and the ocean is wailing. Peeking through the clouds, a sliver of form, a white dragon darting in and out of the storm clouds.

I don’t actually know if it was indeed my kardiatype, but there is a inkling of it being true, so I’d like to think so. And based on that, I do think they have a storm based power. Just like your typical generic east asian dragon. (You can see I have a lot of gripe of my kardiatype being seen as Haku)

You can say the rest of the thing I figured or theorized are based off of the exomemories, I would call some of them noemata, even if a bit wobbly. Because how am I sure my kardiatype was a prince of the ocean? To be honest, I’m not certain either. Sometimes there are just things we don’t or can’t know about our identitype, and that’s okay, their significance and for the identification ones, our self identifications, do not diminish just because we end up having created element within. After all, the phrase “to make memories” is not just a metaphor. You are “living, doing, creating, experiencing.”[1]

Talk about created memories vs exomemories. I also had a flash of vision with my hearttype that confused me to no end, because while it is a possible headcanon of mine, my mind was no where near thinking of a headcanon to even get there.

Laughter. A kid with bright blond hair running towards a village, a house. A pair of eldery couple came out to greet the young child.

I know that’s not Konoha. And I know that kid is me/not-me/Naruto.

It’s really interesting how I can remember it so clearly, compare to my dream memories that are faded at the edge, blurry. I think that’s why I see that as a exomemories. There’s too much other sensation, the sight clear, the sound loud, and maybe scent? You also see I had momentary confusion between the self pronoun there. That was the spark for me to ponder if it may be a kardiatype that was later disregarded, as while important to me, my Naruto hearttype wasn’t a foundational building block of who I am. I also don’t know if Kurama was with that Naruto. But here is where noemata comes in.

I have a lot, and a lot of noemata. Things I just know in my gut. Maybe for my fictomere they are influenced by the source material as well as fandom interpretation. But still. Headcanon and imagined story in my head had this ethereal feeling, like they are not all there, much more pliable, but also more distant from me.

My Naruto hearttype has a Kurama with him. And has a far strong tie to Uzushio. I don’t know if Uzushio was around, maybe that’s why that little bit of exomemory, that Naruto wasn’t in any place recognizable. It look like a random village, all wood hut. Maybe those are Uzushio people.

I think that is true.

A lot of the times, noemata just pops out of nowhere. Or sometimes, I ask questions, and something within me will answer. And I will know. It is why when I assist others in self discovery, I will ask questions, and the “no”’s and “maybe”’s are just as valuable as “yes”’s.

Sometimes you don’t even have to ask questions, something external will trigger and you had that lightbulb turning on moment. Like how I realized that three-tailed kitsune is specific is my Naruto hearttype’s paratype, and how my Aurelion Sol is the 5th concept version that people dub the “unbounded” form. Or that my kardiatype’s guarded village was one that was in ancient Japan, not one of the well known period people likes to talk about.

My own style of self discovery is very lax, “follow the flow” style, however. I got a lot of noemata jumpscare this way.

Like how out of the thousands of pokemon, it was Mew that resonated with me and become a archetrope, instead of say, dragonite or ditto.

Like I somehow figured out I’m not neccessary flying so much that I’m floating. Like how Mew does. Or that I don’t breath any elemental attack. Or the various detail discovery with each and every one of my forms, how the aquatic form have far more different physics than many of my other forms (shark head, sonar receptive ears, quill feather on back though that’s more from phantom shift than pure noemata, turtle flipper though that’s more a empathy moment from playing Ark Survive Evolved and seeing how the magmasaur’s hind leg moves), how I’m just certain that the dream dragon kintype is a present thing, current life thing.

It gets harder and harder to tell if some noemata are purely random, or maybe born from the churning of internal contemplation that always accompanied the discussion on alterhumanity within the community. Like when I figure that I do not eat physical substance, or how I know I as a dragon is a spirit, sort of like youkai and kami, sort of a energy being, sort of a pokemon like creature, a rpg monster.

Regardless of exomemories, noemata that are from random chances or from deliberately triggered knowledge, or created memories or personal “canon”, these are all the breadcrumbs of one’s alterhumanity, all important, all precious.

[1] You’re Here to Make Moments, Not Memories

https://medium.com/mind-cafe/youre-here-to-make-moments-not-memories-249970eed41f

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Want to add on more, the list is truly expansive. But here are some more commonly used alterhuman terms.

Othervague: fuzzy/blurry identity that partially falls under multiple alterhuman labels. Either when you don't want to figure out all the labels used, or overall unsure what your vaguetype may be. (coining post)

Otherlink: Intentionally made connection towards an alterhuman identity, usually people link identify-as identity, though there is no actual limitation. 'linker take on these identities for various reasons such as coping, establishing a stronger connection to preexisting identities, for fun, or just because. (info page here)

Fictomere/Fictionfolk: Both are catch-all terms for all fiction related alterhuman identities--ficto(kin)type, ficto(heart)type, (fiction based) hearthome, synpath, fiction source linktype, fictive, etc. (read more on fictomere here)

Flicker: A temporary identity. Usually fictionflicker. (the definition page)

You can find a lot of them in the Beyond Humanity Alterhuman Dictionary. Other good places like Otherkin Wiki, Sol System's Alterhuman Glossary are worth checking out too!

you there. person posting a "list of alterhuman terms" post in the community tags. name and define five alterhuman identities that ARE NOT nonhumanity or fictionkinity. if you try to use voluntary nonhumanity as one of these the dragon gets to eat you. you have five minutes.

[shredded-feathers]

Oh my god

I think… I found Guardian Gloria? Maybe??

All I know is this… thing… that’s not supposed to be able to follow me around keeps following me around… and is weirdly …extroverted? for what it is… and…

I’m jumping to conclusions. It’s probably not.

But… still… the life span… the tenacity… it… fits?… I think?

I’m not gonna say what I think They’ve become because I don’t know if this is what They had in mind or if They’d be embarrassed or what but like

Goddamn

Good to see… whoever this is… again

Not a long life span to be back together but I hope I can help make that life a good one. They’ve already helped me tonight. I kinda owe it to Them regardless of who it is, I guess, haha